The Virginia Bar Association presented longtime University of Virginia law professor A.E. Dick Howard with its highest honor at its 2023 Annual Meeting. The Gerald L. Baliles Distinguished Service Award is given in recognition and appreciation of exceptional service and contributions to the bar and public at large.

“In Dick’s case, the contributions have a substantive geographic reach of Virginia, the United States and to emerging democracies throughout the world,” said 1999 VBA President David Craig Landin said in presenting the award. Howard was executive director of the Commission on Constitutional Revision in Virginia, created to replace the racist Constitution of 1902. Nearly three-quarters of Virginia voters approved the 1971 Constitution.

A Library of Virginia and The Richmond Times-Dispatch survey named Howard one of the greatest and most influential Virginians of the 20th century.

Howard received the VBA award Jan. 20 during the VBA’s 133rd Annual Meeting in Williamsburg. The professor is a VBA Life Member, denoting membership for at least 40 continuous years. Howard joined the VBA in 1961 and serves on its Committee on Special Issues of National & State Importance.

The Distinguished Service Award was renamed in 2008 in honor of VBA Life Member and former Virginia Gov. Baliles. “I am deeply touched and honored by this award,” Howard said in front of the 400 meeting registrants. “Jerry Baliles was my student, a good friend and a great public servant.”

“There should be others here on this platform with me,” Howard added, “people who, over the years, have mentored or inspired me.” He listed among others Hardy Cross Dillard, the dean of the University of Virginia School of Law who invited Howard to join the faculty there. Howard is the longest serving law professor at the school and has had an impact on thousands of law students. He started teaching in 1964.

A Richmond native, Howard was first in his class at University of Virginia School of Law and a Rhodes Scholar. He briefly worked at Covington & Burling and served as law clerk to Justice Hugo L. Black at the U.S. Supreme Court.

Howard also listed Black among his mentors. “Above all, Hugo Black nurtured in me constitutional values – the wellsprings of a free society, such values as free speech, religious liberty, a commitment to the Constitution.”

He also would invite on stage the members of Virginia’s Commission on Constitutional Revision, which included civil rights lawyer Oliver White Hill Sr.; Lewis F. Powell Jr., who later served on the U.S. Supreme Court; as well as two former presidents of The Virginia Bar Association: George Cochran and Sloane Kuykendall. “Those men excelled at the art of legal craftsmanship,” Howard said. “That experience served me well when, after the collapse of communism, I compared notes with constitution makers in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.” They also were a model of collective leadership. “Rising above party and politics, they showed how to work together for the greater good.”

Howard included his students as those fitting to share his stage. “I have had the gift of teaching remarkable students. They are intelligent, engaged, civil, fun. Some are smarter than I am. But I don’t let them pause long enough to say, ‘He’s not that smart.’ These students teach me – in classroom discussion, in their remarkable papers, in projects where they become genuine collaborators,” he said.

“We often talk of standing on other people’s shoulders. I stand on a lot of shoulders. … On behalf of so many – to whom I owe so much – I am privileged to accept The Virginia Bar Association’s Baliles Award.”

Previous recipients of the Gerald L. Baliles Distinguished Service Award include Baliles, former Chief Justice Donald W. Lemons of the Supreme Court of Virginia, former Govs. A. Linwood Holton Jr. and L. Douglas Wilder, and Dean Emerson G. Spies. The first winner, Lewis F. Powell Jr., received the award in 1988 after he served 15 years as a justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Young Lawyers Division (YLD) awards

During the VBA Annual Meeting, the VBA Young Lawyers Division also recognized the efforts of two of the many young lawyers throughout the state who volunteer to lead the division’s numerous projects.

Jennifer L. Ligon, a partner with Williams Mullen in Richmond, received the division’s highest honor, the Sandra P. Thompson Award, for outstanding work and long-term service. Ligon, a member of the firm’s health care section, focuses her practice on transactional and regulatory matters.

Ann Petros received the Emerson G. Spies Award for enthusiasm, loyalty and dedication in the work of the VBA and YLD in a given year. She is vice president of regulatory affairs at the National Association of Federally-Insured Credit Unions, based in Arlington. There she oversees advocacy on various regulatory developments from federal agencies.
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